In British election, a taste for the absurd brings some relief

LONDON (Reuters) - In an election that will shape the destiny of the United Kingdom, anguish over how to eat bacon sandwiches and hot dogs has brought a note of absurdity to the battle for Downing Street.

The May 7 vote could throw Britain's membership of the European Union into doubt or give Scottish nationalists, who want to break up the United Kingdom, the role of kingmaker in the London parliament.

For Prime Minister David Cameron and opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband, though, the struggle for power has brought an array of culinary, and cutlery, challenges.

Since appearing to want to vomit while eating a bacon sandwich live on television last May, Miliband has repeatedly raised the issue on campaign, even quipping that he could share one of Britain's best loved breakfast treats with Cameron.

"I think if I had my time again, I wouldn't eat a bacon sandwich live on TV," Miliband told a magazine as he set out his bid to follow Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

"But the election is not a bacon sandwich-eating competition. I probably wouldn't win if it was."

Determined to avoid what the media called "Ed Miliband's bacon sandwich incident", Cameron used a knife and fork to eat a hot dog at a barbecue on one campaign visit.

For the confused, the Daily Mail explained that the prime minister, educated at the country's most famous school and a distant relative of the queen, had a "chequered history with hot dogs".
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